Pumpkin Run Pulse

Dr. Tarrin Lupo, physician, author, dedicated organic gardener and liberty activist has been working with social-media marketing for years.

Recently he joined a new online community that all indie biz owners/operators and entrepreneurs should consider getting acquainted with.

I'll leave it to Tarrin, my guest-author, to explain why ...

Facebook STINKS, so I'm using tsū instead and have finally found a good social network for my business and myself.

I walked away from my large Facebook account and moved to an awesome new social network called tsū. But, before I tell you all about tsū, let me tell you why I left Facebook.

In the last two years I’ve observed Facebook’s decline. It’s reached such a low point that it appears to be dying. People are leaving in droves and only using it as a rolodex to contact their friends. The biggest reason people lost their love for Facebook is because it is no longer a fun, organic experience like it used to be. Facebook filters what and whose posts you see. It makes decisions for you about what you might like and spotlights whomever paid money to appear in your feed. Basically you are seeing a lot more of advertising and less of your friend’s posts.

When I was selling my books in 2008, Facebook was a godsend for promotions. I could reach a large audience with just one post. I made a living as an author and a big reason for my success was because of Facebook. But, overtime things changed.

I would spend months building a large group and FB (Facebook) would “archive it” and take it away. Eventually Facebook forced everyone into business pages and then massively restricted it. It took me a little bit to realize when I was promoting something I was doing that nobody was seeing it.

My business took a nose-dive and I couldn’t find any other social network that worked. I was wasting enormous amounts of time and energy grasping at straws. Facebook would only let people related to my business see my posts if I paid them ridiculous amounts of money.

I got so annoyed with it, I killed my Facebook account and moved over to Google+.

It took awhile to get the hang of Google+. It’s actually a pretty cool network but the problem is, it’s a ghost town for engagement.

I worked so hard and nobody would engage with me. Basically the only thing it proved to be useful for was building backlinks to my website and improving my Google rankings. So, I still post over at Google + for business links but I don’t expect anyone to actually talk to me or share anything.

Twitter is worth spending a few minutes posting a day for the backlinks, but unless you are a huge celebrity, Twitter isn’t worth much either. It’s so full of folks promoting things that your message is lost in a sea of other people. The return on investment is just not worth the amount of time it takes.

My friend who has a blog told me she was having success promoting her articles over at this new social network called tsū. It’s a brand new social network that quietly became the fastest growing network in the world. Its name comes from the appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic.

It is invite only, so she sent me a link, I made a free account, surfed the site and was pleased that it instantly familiar. It reminded me of what Facebook was back in 2008 when it was still fun.

I used some hashtags in the search bar and looked for some folks with common interests. I searched hashtags like gardening, organic food, holistic, and other similar keywords. I also looked at the walls (profile areas) of some folks who were posting interesting things. Then I just requested their friendship.

Within just a few days I made a bunch of friends with common interests who were actually commenting and sharing my posts! Honestly, I was a little shocked at how friendly and helpful the community over there is. I immediately fell in love with tsū and decided I was all in.

I diverted my energy from Google + and Twitter and focused on building a strong tsū presence. It paid off in a matter of days. Whatever topic I posted, people actually engaged with it. It was great!

Once I learned more about tsū I understood whyy everyone was so helpful and friendly. It was because it was in their interest to be that way. Tsū actually pays people to post, interact and share.

That’s right -- you read me correctly. You actually get paid for your interaction there. The more you use the tsū network, the more you earn.

The money I earned for interacting with folks is just icing on the cake, which makes it yet another reason why it’s an awesome social site. Tsū actually encourages its users to read, share and like posts of other users so people will talk to each other and make friends.

Tsū runs a few banner ads that appear on your wall and splits the ad revenue with you. They are very generous. They only take 10% of the ad revenue and pay the 90% to their users. It’s kind of like Google Adsense on steroids.

It’s not a new concept . Blog content farms, like Hubpages, share ad revenue with their bloggers, but this is the first time it has come to social networking.

I made a few pennies the very first day I started using it. My paycheck slowly grows a little every day now. It doesn’t sound like much pay right now, but it already out-performs my Adsense payments on my small webpage by 10-fold. In time I think my tsū royalties will greatly surpass my adsense pay. There are some big players who spend lots of time on tsū and they actually earn hundreds of dollars in royalties a month. Those big fish are now making money for just socializing and being popular. In fact, they now make more on tsū royalties than running their own small businesses, which they originally joined tsū to promote.

There is almost a multi-level marketing feel to it, but you are not spending any money or selling anything. In fact you never have to invite even one person to join the community and you still make money. The only thing you’re investing is your time, but hey you give that away free already to Facebook, Google+, Twitter and the others social networking platforms.

The money I make is nice, but honestly I would use it even if it didn’t pay me. It’s been wonderful for making new and like-minded new friends and to promote my medical practice.

tsū is brand new so it’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s still a little clunky and laborious to use, but they are constantly improving it. I think in a few months they will have everything smoothed out and running great. You also need to be realistic with expectations of using this site. If you just sign up and make no effort to talk to anyone, then you won’t get much out of it. It takes about 3-6 weeks of using it before your account gains enough speed to really start causing large amounts of engagement. Just like any business, you will have to invest a little time up front first before it pays you back.

The other issue you need to be warned about is that it can quickly become spammy. Be picky about who you add in your friends network. If someone is just posting picture after picture of cars and is not talking to anyone, I would not add them. Since you can make money from posting, some folks post as much as they can and don’t actually talk to anyone.

On the bright side, the community is great at self-filtering and not supporting those kind of people. As long as you are picky about what people you add as friends, you’ll love the network and cohesion of the nice people over there.

If you want your posts to actually been seen and talked about, come join me over at tsū. Just click the link below and set up an account. If you stop by my wall and say “Hi!” I’ll be happy to help introduce you around.

Finish line

My thanks to Tarrin for sharing his expert and creative knowledge about social network marketing and tsū. You can click the link in his banner pic or the one at the end of his article to get better acquainted with him on tsū and his other work as well. He's also got a new website with a variety of wonderful information on natural medicines, procedures and remedies that I encourage you to check out as well, called Holistic Healing Information (link's embedded for your navigation ease). He's also got a newly designed YouTube channel that's well worth your time to subscribe to. Just CLICK HERE to access it.

That's it for this one!

God bless you, thanks for the read and see you Thursday on femme's Desk!

Doc Lupo and femme,
I found this interesting, as I'm really not up on social networking, so probably wouldn't do too well on this site either! But it sounds as though it is possibly one of the better ones for business networking, and it's nice to get some coin for your activities!
Great to have your viewpoint on this as a guest writer, and thanks for a nice intro, femme!

Reply

femmeflashpoint

2/11/2015 02:34:05 am

Vicki,

I knew this article wouldn't be one of those you would be apt to engage with beyond a read and a comment but, never know when someone you know might find the info useful because lots of us do use social-networking for marketing.

So far, I've been impressed with this one and hope it keeps growing. :)

This is a very interesting review of tsu. It's actually the first positive review I've read. I know of writers who were excited when the site first opened, then later reported their disappointment. It might be worth another look. Doctor Lupo makes a good point about the time spent on the other social sites in that you don't get paid for posting. Unless, of course you gain clients from your posts, but I haven't been so fortunate!

Reply

femmeflashpoint

2/11/2015 03:03:47 am

Hi Shauna,

The thing I've learned about reviews is, they're biased, lol! I've gotten in habit of only mulling over the opinions on such things from people whom I trust and know, to be "in the know" ...

An old friend from Hubpages introduced me to tsu, and he was right about it. Since joining there and using it, I've come across several old friends from other social sites that have been awesome about promoting not only themselves but other people's work as well, which made it appealing from the get go.

Thanks for the visit and the comment!

femme

Reply

Gail Sobotkin

2/11/2015 03:10:36 am

Hi Femme,
Informative article about a social network I have never heard of.
Overall, I'm feeling "fatigued" about social networking and at present, not willing to try something new.
Main reason I like Facebook is to view photos of friends and family, especially nieces and nephews whom I only see a few times of year.
I'm sure I'll be hearing more about Tsu and at least I'll now know what it is!
Hugs,
Gail

Reply

femmeflashpoint

2/11/2015 04:35:00 am

Hi Boomer :)

I can appreciate getting burnout with social networking and honestly I only maintain a presence (the last several months) a much smaller one on facebook because of close friends and family, and the remaining supporters there I have that read and share my work and the bible study and prayer group I belong to.

Most of my friends and family that use facebook are able to use it without it causing them much confusion and they aren't the sort to want to learn how to use other sites.

So, to keep in touch with my huge family and large circle of friends in far away places, I stick with it, and give it at least a little of my time almost every day. But for business networking, it's not a place that's been advantageous and tsu is already making itself worth my while. I'm hoping it continues to that if I continue working with it. ☺

Thanks much for the read and the comment. It's always a pleasure to have you visit flashPress. ☺

Dear Femme, thank you so much for introducing Dr Tarrin Lupo. I am going to follow him, as I am truly interested in holistic healing. I am also going to take the time to open an account in tsu, although I have no idea how I am going to maintain it.

Hugs,

Martie

Reply

femmeflashpoint

2/12/2015 01:50:40 am

Hi Martie :)

Tarrin's a great guy and an awesome resource for natural medicines. He's studied and participated in research in several other countries and has been successful in gaining positive results.

I also love that he's beginning to incorporate remote patient consults and therapy assistance via the web. For his patients, that's a big help because many of them don't live in the same area as Tarrin.

Thanks for the visit and the comment and we'll see you on tsu!

femme

Reply

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